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| | Genre: Adventure & RPG | | | Min OS X: 10.6 |
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Avadon 2: The Corruption
January 2, 2014 | Ted Bade | |
Requirements: Mac OS X: 10.6 | CPU: Intel | RAM: 512 MB | HD Space: 300 MB Review: Avadon 2: The Corruption from Spiderweb Software is a classic Role Playing Game (RPG) that is fun to play despite it’s slightly archaic interface and lower level graphics. The developers at Spriderweb Software have captured the fun and entertaining aspects of a classic RPG and done a very good job of it. This makes Avadon 2 a great choice for RPG fans. Avadon 2 is the second chapter of the Avadon trilogy. However, it is a stand alone game. You don’t carry over anything from the first chapter and don’t even need to have played the first chapter to play Avadon 2. You begin by creating a character who can be one of the five different classes available in the game. Your new character goes on a training mission that serves as a tutorial of the Avadon 2 interface. This first mission eventually leads you to a point where you can become one of the elite members of this world, called a Hand of the Black Fortress. As you move through the missions and storyline, you eventually meet certain NPCs that will be able to join your character in future missions. Each of these playable NPCs has a history and a personality which come into play. Choosing which type of playable NPC to bring along on a mission is an important aspect of playing Avadon 2. Each class has benefits and limitations. Which class of NPC you take along on a mission is up to you and how you like to play. It also means that you can play the game several different times, each time with a different team, which will produce a different experience. The five classes in Avadon 2 are: Blademaster, Shadowwalker, Shaman, Sorcerer, and Tinkermage. The Tinkermage is a new class added to Avadon 2. Each class has its own unique abilities and spells that can be used during combat. The Tinkermage is pretty nice in that they can create constructs that stand alone and fight for the group, essentially giving the Tinkermage more attacks per turn. The other classes use either sword or magical skills to fight their foes. Avadon 2 is a turn based game. When in combat, each member of the battle gets their turn to do something, this includes members of your party as well as monsters and enemies. Obviously, you control the members of your party and the game’s AI controls that of your enemies. Based on individual creature and character statistics the game engine chooses the order in which the members of your party get to attack. You decide what each of your characters does, then the game decides what the monsters do. This continues until all members of one side are dead. Hopefully, it’s the monsters and not your side! During combat, the tiny icon on the screen shows the word “active” for a moment near the member when it is their turn. If you miss that word showing up, the larger badges on the screen roster indicate which character is currently active. It is really easy to mistake which member is active, and then do something that is detrimental to your game play. For instance, clicking on a monster near the member that you thought was active, which causes the actual active member to try to run to that position, which often leads to loosing a turn, since they need to disengage with the enemy they were battling. As you move through the battle, information about the attacks, amount of damage, effects, and so forth appear momentarily on the screen. I wish that the information stayed longer or that one could review it as they wish. I often missed battle related information that passed by too quickly. Health bars on both enemies and your team members change as the battle progresses. When a monster dies, it is gone, If a character’s health gets to zero, their badge disappears from the roster, although they are not necessarily dead. If all of the characters die, the game ends. You can reload a previous saved game and try again. If only one character died, they might recover at the end of combat, or if you managed to bring one, you can use a resurrection potion on them to bring them back into action. During combat sequences, you can select to do one or more actions that are available for each of your members. Generally, your battle options are limited to moving toward and if close enough attacking an enemy, choosing to use a more powerful or magical attack on the enemy, eating something or drinking a healing potion if needed, and so forth. The TinkerMage can build a turret and also attack in a turn. The turret will attack in the round after it is built and continue attacking until it is destroyed or the battle ends.
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